


When will we meet again, sweetheart?

by ElisAttack



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Norse Religion & Lore, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Immortality, Lydia Martin & Stiles Stilinski Friendship, M/M, Professor Derek Hale, Reincarnation, Soulmates, Stalking, Thriller
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-12
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-09-08 02:16:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8826454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElisAttack/pseuds/ElisAttack
Summary: Someone is stalking Stiles.He sees the blue-eyed man everywhere he goes.  Even in his sleep, Stiles is not free of him.  He murders Stiles in his nightmares, always wearing the same face, but never the same clothes.  Always carrying a weapon engraved with a threefold spiral.  Stiles is starting to think he’s going insane.  No one believes his stalker is real, not his friends, not his family.  Only Derek Hale seems to take anything he says seriously.  Only Derek seems to care about what happens to him, or at the very least, doesn’t want Stiles to end up dead.Or the one where Stiles’ stalker is leaving a trail of bodies behind him, and Derek knows more than he’s letting on.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo, this has been sitting in my drafts for ages. I started roughly plotting it about a year ago, but only started writing it during the summer. 
> 
> Shoutout to fruit-of-my-hoechloins over on tumblr who read this over and helped convince me that it isn't a total mess, thanks dude! 
> 
> The fic is based upon two posts on Tumblr, (which I will link when I finally track them down on my mess of a blog). Also, I'm nearly finished writing the second chapter, and the third should follow posthaste, since I'm nearly on Christmas break. But until then, enjoy!

Stiles usually dreams in vibrant colours.  Shades of greens, blues, and yellows, moving together to form abstracts.  His dreams are never fully formed, they’re always fleeting, yet familiar.  Non-corporeal, yet reachable.  

Stiles’ dreams have always been like that.  

Until they aren’t.

He can _feel_ the dry grass beneath his toes, the tickling of the long strands against his thin, tanned ankles.  He stretches his hand in front of him, studying long, brown fingers he knows don’t belong to him.  The sky beyond his fingers is blue and cloudless, completely different from the gloomy, cold sky he last saw when he closed his curtains.  He hasn’t felt this kind of heat, seeping through the thin shift covering his body, since summer.

He’s gripping a sickle in his other hand.  It looks like something out of a museum—spotted with oxidized mint in the way that only bronze can be—his hands wrapped in a white-knuckled grip around the shaft.

It doesn’t feel like a dream.  It’s too real to be one, and yet, Stiles knows it must be.  

There’s a horrible thundering coming in from the distance.  He feels it in his bones, a looming dread heading his way.  

The sound of thousands of blades thudding against rawhide shields.  

Stiles drops his spread hand, and finally sees a line of bronze along the hazy horizon—the shapes distorted and the sky reflected so it looks like a large body of water lies in front.  He knows the haze is the machinations of earth demons.  No water lies in the desert, only beyond at the sea, but even that is a day's walk away.  The bronze, however, signals another coming.  One he fears more than the earth demons.

Stiles’s body spins, out of his control, and his mouth opens wide to shout in a panicked voice, a single ringing word of warning in a language unfamiliar to him.  Stiles turns on his heel and runs.

His bare feet thud across the dry earth.  Stalks of sorghum part as he rushes through the fields, his eyes fixed on the small adobe hut still a long ways away.  He spots, out of the corner of his eye, his fellow villagers running for the safety of the huts.  His heart thumps fast, but not as fast as the approaching thud of hobnailed sandals on the earth.

He feels _them_ getting closer, and desperation forms tears in his eyes.  

His feet bleed, cut on the rocks he’s normally so cautious to look for.  But he doesn’t care.  Stiles knows someone he cares for desperately lies within that hut—a hand on her rounded belly, a gentle smile on her face—he must protect her.  He promised her father that he would shield her with his life.  He promised her that he would care for her, love her, feed her and the child she carries.  Their child.

The demons from across the sea are getting closer, and running is all Stiles can hope to do.  They’re coming for their queen, stolen away selfishly by Stiles’ prince, a woman whose beauty launched a thousand ships.

Stiles bursts through the door, finding his love huddled in the corner, a shard of pottery clutched to her chest like a knife.  She calls out his name, a series of unpronounceable syllables he instinctively knows is his.  Tears flow like salt down her cheeks.  He rushes to her, and pulls her close, tucking her head under his chin.  His brown fingers thread through her coarse hair, whispering comforts.

A long shadows casts over them, and Stiles knows it is over.  She asks him for one last thing, and Stiles knows he must give it to her, he would grant her the moon if he could.  

The demons are not kind to the women they capture.  

He presses a kiss to her forehead—wishes he could lay his head on her lap one last time, while her deft fingers run like a soft breeze, braiding his hair—then snaps her neck.

His love crumples at his feet, and Stiles turns to face his end.

A pale, muscled man with hair the colour of wet sand, and cold eyes as blue as the sky, steps through the doorway.  A cruel, short sword with a threefold spiral etched into the blade, swings menacingly from his grip.  He stares at Stiles like he wants to consume him alive, eyes flickering down to the body of Stiles’ love with something unreadable in their depths.  

Stiles’ heart stutters in his chest, cold fear running through his body.  The memory comes to him then:  the melt of cold ice trickling down his cheeks.  The warmth of blood splattered across pure white snow.  A betrayal.  The shattering of a blade, a threefold spiral carved into the hilt, and then into flesh.

Stiles recognizes this man, as he steps forward, a smile stretching wide and sinister across his cheeks.  His eyes like death forthcoming.  This man who has killed him countless times before.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you, Stiles,” the ageless demon drawls, his blade descending like a guillotine.  

Stiles wakes with a start, clutching at his throat where he felt hot bronze slice through like butter.  His pillow is wet with tears and snot.  Crescent-shaped, painful marks stand out in sharp contrast against his palm, where his nails dug unconsciously into his skin.  He sucks in a deep breath in panic, before slowly realizing that he’s safe.  It was all a nightmare.  

Stiles blinks up at his stuccoed ceiling for another half hour.  It was a dream, and yet, he doesn’t manage to fall back to sleep until he rises and locks his bedroom door.

***

"It is said Odin himself rent Fenrir in half, split the great wolf, so to delay Ragnarok."  

Derek clicks to the next slide where a woodcut of a massive wolf pulls a man off a horse.

“But, others say Odin was unsuccessful, and was devoured whole by the wolf.  His son Vidarr was to avenge him, prying the wolf’s jaw apart, and stabbing him in the heart.  As you likely know, the second theory is the most popular, and the one with the most surviving manuscripts.”

Derek’s students stare at him in awe, as he explains the different versions of the same tale.  The lecture hall is packed, but no students are ignoring him in favour of staring at their laptops.  He’s taught this course many times before, for years, but the university keeps requesting he teach it again and again.  Apparently he brings something to it that all the other professors never seemed to.  It’s a second year course, and yet it fills up quicker than any other in the whole department.

It’s probably because he has a very personal stake in the tale, and it shows.

"My own last name, Hale, translates from Old English to 'someone who resides in a nook or a hollow,' denoting a flat piece of alluvial land at the side of a river's bend.  But it can also refer to a patch of dry land in a fen.  To those who know Old Norse, Fenrir directly translates to fen-dweller."

A student raises their hand, "Professor Hale, does that mean you're a descendant of the bringer of Ragnarok himself?"

Derek chuckles.  "If my family line is traced back far enough, I do have Norse blood in my veins, but I doubt any of it is wolf."  The lie rolls easily of Derek's tongue and the students laugh.  "Any more questions?"  No one raises their hands and Derek claps his hands once.  "Then, the class is dismissed, office hours are listed on the syllabus, and for heaven’s sake please check it before emailing me with inane questions."

He’s fumbling with the keys to his office, lecture notes and laptop balanced in the crook of his elbow, when his TA sweeps in and unloads his arms of excess bulk.  

“Thanks, Allison,”  Derek says gratefully, finally managing to open the door.  

“What would you do without me, Derek?”  She jokes, walking in and dropping his papers on his desk, curling up in the chair opposite.

“Most likely mix up the three classes I’m teaching.”  Derek sits down in his office chair, sweeping aside the mess on his desk in order to start up his laptop.  While he waits for it to load, he turns to Allison with a smile on his face.  “I might be going grey, but I would remember if we had a scheduled meeting.”

“Unfortunately, this is all social,” Allison says with a dimpled smile, pulling an envelope from her bag, “Lydia’s hosting a party for my birthday, and you’re invited.”

“Joy,”  Derek deadpans, taking the invite and reading the contents, “I see it doesn’t give the birthday girl’s age?”

Allison chuckles, getting up from her chair.  “That’s for me to know, and you to find out.  See you on Saturday, Derek.  And make sure you bring a mid-priced cabernet, or Lydia will be pissed.”

“Get out of my office, Argent,”  Derek says fondly, and Allison shuts the door with a little wave.  

Derek logs into his university email, and sorts through the influx of student emails in his account.  It’s the beginning of the year, so they’re mostly just formalities and questions about what the course entails—a lot of which is on the syllabus.  

Derek sends off a few one lined replies, that he hopes conveys how unimpressed he is.  He can’t wait until later in the semester when the more interesting questions about course content start funneling in.  

Derek’s a professor of Germanic studies, a discipline few decide to specialize in.  Most of the students in his classes come from other programs, but are fascinated by various aspects of Norse mythology.  

Ever since those Thor superhero movies were released, there has been a resurging interest in Germanic studies by the general public.  It’s both a curse, and a blessing.  On one hand, it breeds know-it-alls who think by reading comic books they can become experts on the subject.  On the other, their department finally has sufficient funding, which means he can afford to give Allison the raise she deserves.  

Derek’s scrolling when a subject line catches his attention.  He automatically clicks on the email, and it opens to a short message with an attached picture.  It’s sent from a guy named Mieczysław Stilinski, asking if Derek could take a look at a symbol, and tell him all he could about its pre-Celtic origin.  He opens the attachment to reveal a crudely drawn triskelion.  

The exact same triskelion that Derek has on his back.  

He frowns.  The triskelion is popularly considered a Celtic symbol, and few know that it has been found on archaeological sites that predate the arrival of the Celts to Ireland.  

Curious about why this Stilinski is asking _him_ for an explanation—an expert in Germanic studies—and not a runologist, Derek types Stilinski’s full name into Google.  It brings up a whole bunch of Facebook accounts from people in Poland, and one in New York City—his city.

Derek doesn’t have Facebook.  He likes to limit his online presence, and especially doesn’t like to have pictures of himself floating around on the world wide web.  

Whenever he goes to conferences hosted by other universities, he ends up having to introduce himself, while his colleagues are greeted by name, having published papers and books with their smiling faces on them.  Derek doesn’t even use his full name on the literature he publishes—choosing instead to go by d.n. Hale.  

He enjoys his privacy.

And so, it’s strange that Stilinski addresses him by his first and last name.  Perhaps because he lives in New York, and they might have met each other before?  

Derek scrolls through what he can, before the website brings up a prompt asking him to sign in.  Almost everything is set to private, except for a profile picture of a sparsely stubbled man wearing a pair of wayfarers resting on a upturned nose, a small amount of info stating the city where Stilinski lives, and his profession as a medical examiner.  

A chill runs down Derek’s spine.  A  _medical examiner_ is asking about a triskelion.  There’s only one likely reason for that—a body has turned up with a triskelion carved onto it.  

Derek can name one murderous sonofabitch, off the top of his head, whose MO is exactly that.

Derek clicks reply.

***

Stiles sniffs sadly into his chestnut praline latte and wishes he wasn’t coming down with a cold.  He’s standing on the subway platform, waiting for the train.  He wishes he could have called in sick today, but he used up all his sick days when he caught the flu in September—one of the many hazards of taking public transit on a daily basis.

He’s wearing the scarf and bobble hat his dad sent him for the holidays, wrapped around his head so he looks like the Michelin Man’s festive cousin.  A business woman, waiting nearby, keeps sending him the dirtiest looks.  Stiles wishes he could slink off back home, but he needs to pay his rent, and it doesn’t matter that he’s Lydia’s favourite, she will ride his ass until he’s begging for her to stop.  She’s ruthless like that.

The train slides into the station, and he tucks himself in a corner, on the opposite end of the car—far away from germaphobia in an expensive pant suit.  

He’s checking his emails on his phone when he notices that Dr. Hale, the man Lydia suggested he contact, has sent him a reply.

Stiles hesitates in opening it, afraid of what he will find within.  He keeps having those awful nightmares, which he knows for sure has nothing to do with the case.  He was having them months before the first body with a threefold spiral carved into the upper back, showed up on his table.  Lydia says the dreams are all in his head—the stress of the job getting to him, making him remember things wrong.

But Stiles isn’t an idiot.  He knows what he’s seeing and what he’s dreaming about, and both of them make absolutely no sense.

Dr. Hale’s response will hopefully set his nerves straight, and make him see that his nightmares are exactly what they are on the tin, instead of some weird precognition thing Stiles wants nothing to do with.  Or, it could go in the totally opposite direction, and Hale might end up confirming everything that Stiles’ is afraid of.  

He hesitates, but opens it anyway.  His dad has always said he was curious to a fault.  

Hale’s email is professional and detailed, thanking Stiles for his interest in the subject, while also questioning his reasons for asking.  Hale claims that the symbol Stiles drew out on a Starbucks napkin—a triskelion—could have many different meanings, depending on the subject.  

Stiles is only an ME, so he isn’t allowed to give any details of an open case to a civilian.  He also doesn’t want to make himself look like a nut by saying he’s been dreaming of weapons covered in triskelions, and the same man murdering him throughout the ages.  

The first night it happened, months ago, Stiles knew instinctively that he was in what could only be Troy.  Stiles can recall flashes of memories from the person he was in the dream.  From knowledge on how to grow sorghum in various types of soil, to the gossiping of the women in the village as they talked of their new princess who was stolen away from her husband and brought to the walled royal city.  He’s never even seen the movie, but he remembers bits and pieces of the tale from his high school history class.

Last night he dreamt he was a Victorian woman, a lady of the night, who stumbled upon her sister, eviscerated, in the streets.  Only to turn around, and see the same man Stiles has seen in all his dreams.  The man with cold blue eyes.  The man had stabbed her in the belly and left her for dead.  

The last thing she saw before she died—and Stiles woke up—was the glint of gas light on the blade of the knife, showing a triskelion etched near the handle.

Stiles figures he could simply lie and say he found the symbol on an old family heirloom and was curious about its meaning, without him sounding as crazy as he feels.

Hale’s email confirms that the triskelion dates back beyond the Celts, and states it was used outside of the Celtish context by many cultures, including the ancient Greeks.  Hale ends the short message by asking Stiles if he would like to meet for coffee to discuss the topic further.  Stiles bites at his fingernail, deciding.  It would be nice to work some more information out of Hale, even though it would mean Stiles has to reveal details from his dreams.  

Eventually, he screws together his courage and send out a quick confirmation, laying out the times and days he’s free to meet.

The train stops at his station, and Stiles climbs onto the platform.  He’s walking towards the busy tunnel when he feels the weight of a gaze on his back.  It’s a familiar weight, one that he’s been associating with his dreams for months now.  It sends a shiver down his spine, and he folds his hands into his coat pocket, hunching his shoulders, as he pushes through the crowd.  The weight only seems to grow heavier.

Stiles looks up, studying the crowd, hoping to get a glance at the person he knows is staring at him.

He looks to the platform across the rails, and sees cold, blue eyes he would recognize anywhere.  

Stiles freezes in his spot.  All the sound sucks out of the air, until he can hear only the rapid thudding of his own racing heart.  The dark-haired man from his nightmares stares uncannily at him.  A faint smile pulls at his lips, surrounded by a goatee only featured in Stiles’ most recent dream.  

Someone pushes into Stiles, swearing at him to get out of his way, and the loud ruckus of the busy station comes flooding back.  When Stiles looks up again, a train is blaring into the station, blocking the man from view.

Stiles doesn’t bother sticking around long enough for the train to leave.

***

Derek carries the bottle of cabernet sauvignon in a paper bag as he climbs the steep, narrow staircase up to Allison and Lydia’s apartment.  The apartment’s in a good neighbourhood, even if the building isn’t as nice.  

Derek’s been there only once—to pick up Allison’s grading.  He remembers their apartment being relatively large, which he thought was strange, until he found out Lydia was years older than Derek thought she was.

Derek always believed Allison shacked up with a fellow penniless grad student her own age.  Imagine his surprise when he had knocked on her door, only for it to open, revealing a woman who looked closer to Derek’s physical age than Allison’s with a well paying, stable job.  Derek had discretly fistpumped Allison on his way out.

All Derek knows about Lydia is that she works for the police, commands at least five underlings, works a nine to fiver with good benefits, and is one of the most terrifying women Derek has ever met.  Which is saying something, since he’s met quite a few terrifying women.  There’s also something about her that tugs at Derek’s senses in a way he’s only felt a few times before.  

She reminds him of someone he’s met, but when he touched her, shaking her hand for the first time, there was nothing.  

Derek has felt the spark only once in the past.  The moment when his soul feels like it could be complete, but Lydia Martin makes him feel nothing.  

 _Although_ , when Derek takes into consideration the rumors he hears from the press.  About a killer carving triskelions into their victims’ backs, Derek wonders, and all that wondering brings forth a headache like no other.

He hasn’t seen his uncle in years, and Derek hopes it stays that way.

Allison greets him at the door, taking the bottle of wine with a smile and a relieved sigh.  She leaves the bottle on the appetizer table, and Derek watches one of her fellow TAs descend upon it like a vulture, before he’s whisked away into the fray.

“I’m glad you could come,”  Allison grins, “You hardly ever show up at any faculty events, I was starting to think you spent all your time in your office, only coming out to teach and eat.”

“Yeah, well, I actually like you,”  Derek admits, “most of my colleagues though, leave much to be desired.”

“Ah yes, Professor Blake,”  Allison says with pity in her tone, handing him a glass of what smells like sangria.  She would know.  One time Allison had the misfortune of walking in on Professor Blake cornering Derek in his office, pushing her chest in his face.  He was uncomfortable to say the least, and was glad Allison barged in when she did—he was just about to pull a houdini and take off, but that would have raised questions Derek didn’t want asked.  Ever.  

“I hear she’s dating a banker now.”

“Good riddance,”  Allison states firmly.  Derek smiles into his glass.  He doesn’t think he could ever find a finer TA than Allison if he tried.

“You know,”  Derek says teasingly, “You did promise to reveal your age.”

Allison snorts, “Look at my CV, it’s in there.”  Her eyes brighten noticeably, and she waves at someone lost in the crowd of slightly tipsy students.  “Stiles is here.  You guys _need_ to meet, he can ramble on about the most obscure, weirdest things.  Just like you.”

“I don’t ramble,”  Derek huffs, offended, “Besides, what kind of name is _Stiles_.”

“I’m a Stiles.”  Derek turns away from Allison, and the bottom falls out of his universe.  He’s reaching for the pale, mole-spotted man with large dark circles under his eyes, before he even knows it.  When his fingers make contact with the chilly skin of Stiles’ hand—where it’s clutched around a travel mug full of what smells like a mix of the cabernet Derek brought and cheap coffee—a sizzling spark runs across his skin like a livewire.  

Stiles seems to feel it too, going by the way he flinches back, wine slopping over the rim of the mug.  Stiles swears colourfully, handing the mug over to Derek before grabbing at a pile of napkins.  He swoops down and cleans the spilled coffee/wine from the floor, while Derek stands there, frozen, like an idiot.

“What have you done this time, Stiles?”  Lydia Martin’s heels click as she walks over to them, standing in front of Stiles, looking down at him with pursed lips.

“It’s not my fault,”  Stiles whines.  “This guy,”  he says while pointing at Derek, “Must have been rubbing his socked feet all over your nice rug, because he just shocked me like he’s a twelve volt Pikachu.”

“Your mouth keeps moving, but I don’t understand any of the words you’re saying.”

“C’mon, Lyds, give me a break.  It’s been a shitty week.”

Lydia’s eyes soften slightly as she bends over and grabs Stiles by the arm, tugging him to his feet.  The soiled napkins end up tossed in a trashcan, and Stiles’ mug of coffee/wine ends up back in his hands.  How, Derek doesn’t remember.  He’s too busy staring at Stiles, studying every inch of his face, like he’s never going to see it again.  

Considering Derek’s past, that’s a reasonable thing for him to do.

“Jeez, take a picture, it’ll last longer,”  Stiles says irritably, scrubbing a hand over his tired face.

“You look like shit.”  And that was not what Derek meant to say at all.  Of all the things he could have said to his newly found soulmate, telling him he looks terrible was not a statement that should have ever left his mouth.

”Thanks,”  Stiles says sarcastically, taking a long gulp from the disgusting mixture brewing in his mug.

“Stiles,”  Lydia smiles thinly, elbowing Stiles in the side, and making him sputter, “This is Derek Hale, the man I told you to email about that thing, you know, the  _thing_.”

“ _Ohhh_ ,”  Stiles says drunkenly, “Hmm, I don’t give a single fuck.”  And then he wanders off.

“Wait,”  Derek calls weakly after him, just as Stiles disappears into the crowd, “We should talk.”

Lydia rolls her eyes, “Don’t bother with him right now, he’s been here for hours and has spent the whole time drinking.”

“ _Lydia_ ,”  Allison whispers harshly, “That’s not your business to say.”

“This is my house, isn’t it?”  She sniffs haughtily, moisture in her eyes, before abruptly turning on her heel and marching away.

Allison stares after her, before turning back to Derek with a weak smile.  “Don’t mind her, she’s not normally like this with Stiles, but he’s been acting crazy all week, and she’s been worried out of her mind.”  Allison throws a thumb over her shoulder.  “I’m going to check on her, are you okay with being alone?”

Derek nods, “I’m fine, just go make sure she’s alright.”

Allison nods distractedly, before turning and power-walking after Lydia.  Which leaves Derek in an apartment full of strangers, and his drunk soulmate.  Derek puts his wolf senses to the test and gets sniffing.  Only a minute later and he’s tracked Stiles to the spare bedroom’s fire escape.  Stiles sits curled up against the brick, his half empty mug of coffee/wine cradled in his palms.

“Hey, are you okay?”  Derek asks, sticking his head out of the window into the brisk January air, unintentionally causing Stiles to startle for the second time that night.   _Good job, Derek_ , he thinks, _what a great impression to make on your soulmate._   

“Just dandy,”  Stiles mumbles, staring up at the quarter moon.  It’ll be another week and a half until the moon is full again.  Why couldn’t he have met Stiles while the moon was waxing?  When it would’ve been only a few days until it was full?  For thousands of years, the universe has not acted in his favour, of course it isn’t about to start now.  

“I bet you’re glad you met me now, before you got a full dose of my crazy in broad daylight tomorrow.”

Derek frowns.   _Tomorrow_?  The only person he’s supposed to meet tomorrow is…

“Mieczysław Stilinski?”  Derek asks.

“The one and only.  Actually, I’m surprised you managed to pronounce it right, I can’t even do it justice.”   

Derek shrugs.  He’s not about to tell Stiles he’s fluent in Polish because he spent half a century in Warsaw, two hundred years ago.

“What do you want?  I’m a busy man,”  Stiles says, not looking busy in the slightest.

“The triskelion.  You sent me that email because of the murders, right?  You’re an ME so it relates to the case you’re working on?”  

“I wish,”  Stiles bemoans, rubbing a hand through his already mussed hair.  “I’ve been having these weird fucking dreams.”

“About triskelions?”

“More about this dude, who keeps following me around the city, and poking me with triskelions in my sleep.”  Stiles makes violently stabbing gestures with his hand.  “Oh wait, not triskelions, weapons _covered_ in triskelions, a major distinction, that,”  Stiles’ slurs, obviously drunk off his ass.

Derek bites his bottom lip, worried.  “Could you describe the man you’ve been seeing?”

“What’s the point, it’s not like you’re going to believe me anyway.  Lydia doesn’t believe me.  My dick of a stalker keeps pulling a disappearing act—like he’s a fucking rabbit in a top hat—whenever I spot him and try to point him out to her.  She thinks I’m going cuckoo for cocoa puffs.  I mean, I can’t really blame her.  She was there when my mom started going downhill.  She thinks the same thing’s happening to me.  Dementia is hereditary, after all.”

“I believe you, Stiles,”  Derek says solemnly, and Stiles looks up at him with wide, surprised, eyes.

“You do?”

“Of course I do, now please, describe for me the man you’ve been seeing.  It’s important,”  Derek adds.  

Stiles does as he asks, and after he’s done, Derek feels like grabbing at Stiles’ nearly empty mug and chugging down the rest, no matter that it won’t affect him in the slightest.

Peter’s back.

***

The last time he saw Peter, Derek was climbing off a train to a station filled with steam.  It was the year 1889, and only a week previous, he had felt his soulmate die.  

He had been in Warsaw, teaching at a university when, mid lecture, he felt a horrible stabbing in his chest, and collapsed.  It could only mean one thing: Peter had found his soulmate, and murdered them, again.  This time on a cold cobblestone street in London.

With his suitcase clutched in hand, Derek had set out across London to find and reclaim the body.  

He had known what his uncle used to do to the bodies of his soulmate—carving a triskelion into their upper back as a mockery of the tattoo Derek’s mother gave him thousands of years ago.  His uncle had done it the first time he killed Derek’s soulmate, and he will continue to do it every time Derek’s soulmate is reincarnated.

Derek had tipped his hat, and handed a penny to a grimy faced child waving a selection of newspapers around, and screaming at the top of his lungs about the Ripper murders.  Derek had taken a paper, swallowed down the tears threatening to spill over, and got to reading.

Out of the five women murdered, he didn’t know which one was his soulmate by name, but he could have guessed.  She was the one murdered on the day he collapsed.  Derek had thrown the newspaper away, and set out to where the bodies were being kept.  

After he had claimed the bodies, and paid well for good funerals for all the women Peter murdered, Derek emerged onto the dirty street to find Peter waiting for him, leaning against a horse drawn carriage.

“Nephew,”  Peter had drawled,  “It’s lovely to see you.  What has it been, three centuries?”

Derek had clenched his teeth and followed Peter into the dark, curtained carriage.  He could feel his claws emerge, scratching at his palms.  At that moment, he had wanted so badly to rip out his uncle’s throat, but there wouldn’t have been any point.  Peter would have just grown it back.  Like he did every single time Derek had mauled him in anger.

“My sweet Theodoric, you’ve grown,”  Peter had remarked with a smirk, stroking a finger along the goatee he’d never worn before.

“I go by Derek now,”  he had stated firmly, glaring at Peter.

“You’re getting with the times.  Finally.  I abandoned ‘Petrus’ just after the fall of the Roman empire, you know.”

“Yes, but you’re psychotic.  No one should be taking suggestions from you.”  Derek folded his arms over his chest, bumping in his seat, as the carriage rattled.

Peter had leaned forward, a glint in his eye, “No, Derek, not psychotic, _angry_ ,”

Derek had snorted.  “We both know you can’t feel any emotion, let alone anger.”

Peter had chuckled, pointing at his temple, “But of course, after all, I’m psychotic.”

“You’re why Laura never wanted any children when she finally found her soulmate, why she died childless in her old age.  She didn’t want to make another _you_.”

“Derek, Derek, Derek,”  Peter had shaken his head, amused, “She didn’t want to make another _us_.”  He had spread his arms wide, an unhinged smile on his face.  “After all, what are we but the children of Fenris?  Cursed by the almighty Odin to forever roam the earth split in two, searching eternally for our other half.”

“We wouldn’t be split if you would just stop killing our soulmates.”

Peter had thrown his head back and laughed.  “And then what, Derek?  You die happy of old age, finally together with the other half of your soul.  No, I think not.”  Peter’s eyes had narrowed.  “You killed my soulmate first, you deserve to suffer the years with me.”

“ _Me_?”  Derek had whispered incredulously, “You’ve murdered your own soulmate countless times now.”

“Because they weren’t _her_ ,”  Peter had raised his voice, “They are never her, they’re always pale imitations compared to my beautiful Alda.”

Derek had snorted.  “ _Alda_.  I may have put her on that caravan that led to her death, but you forced my hand in doing so.  Don’t you remember, uncle?  The black eye you gave her, the bruises up and down her arms, the hair you tore out of her head.  She wanted to leave you.”

“She was mine!”  Peter had shouted, pointing a finger accusingly at Derek, “She belonged to me.  She was the other half of my soul and you sent her away in the dead of night for that damned caravan to be captured and ransacked by bandits.  I felt her die when she was supposed to be sleeping beside me.  Do you even know how that feels?”

Derek had narrowed his eyes.  “Yes, I do, uncle.  You made sure I did the first time you killed my soulmate.”

“Yes, and I will continue to kill them until Alda is reincarnated right.”

“She’s always right, you just refuse to see her beyond her looks, beyond the red hair and hazel eyes.  Her soul is what matters,”  Derek had whispered harshly.

“As if you would know, Derek.  I’ve only let you meet your soulmate once.”  

Derek had growled threateningly, but Peter had only laughed as the carriage stopped its motion, the horses clacking to a halt.  

“Ah, here we are.”  Peter had pulled aside the curtain with a gloved hand, giving Derek a perfect, unobstructed view of an empty street, cobblestones stained with a faint hint of rusty blood.  Blood that Derek had been able to smell in the air, even a week after the murders had happened.

Derek’s eyes had widened in anger, and before he had known it, he was launching himself at Peter, claws fully extended.  Derek had known it would do nothing.  Their kind is immortal.  They could survive being burnt to ashes if need be.  But when he smelled his soulmate’s blood, something in him had snapped.  

He had exited the carriage, only a few minutes later, the front of his black coat soaked in his uncle’s blood.  Wiping his bloodied hands on the side of the carriage, he had reached into his purse and flipped a gold sovereign at Peter’s driver.  The carriage had moved, disappearing into the London fog, taking his slowly recovering uncle with it.  

Derek had turned on his heel and left, walking towards the ports, figuring it was about time he left the old continent behind for America.

***

Stiles wakes in Lydia’s guest bedroom to the smell of burning bacon.  He stumbles into the bathroom, nursing a roaring hangover.  When he comes out, Allison’s waiting with a cup of dark roast and a sheepish smile.

“Lydia is trying to cook breakfast.”

Stiles wrinkles his nose.  “Yeah, I smelled.”

He finds Lydia in the kitchen—burnt bacon draining on a paper towel—angrily scrambling eggs.

“Morning Lyds,”  Stiles says, walking past her to grab a coconut water out of the fridge.

“Stiles,”  she grunts in return, “Bacon?”  She offers, pointing to the plate of tangled charcoal.

“I’ll pass, thanks,”  Stiles says, pressing a kiss to her temple before joining Allison at the breakfast table.

“How is she?”  Stiles whispers to Allison when he slides into his chair.

“She spent the whole night crying,”  Allison states lowly, half-heartedly sawing at a piece of burnt bacon before giving up and moving to her eggs.  

Stiles hunches over guiltily.  “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”  Allison looks at him sadly just as Lydia place a plate of scrambled eggs in front of him, before sitting down with her own plate.  

They eat in silence, and after the dishes are done and put away, Stiles leaves hurriedly, pretending he doesn’t see the disappointed look on Lydia’s face.  

She probably wanted to talk, but Stiles has an appointment to keep.

Stiles takes the metro to the Starbucks where Derek wanted to meet.  Stiles honestly doesn’t remember half of their conversation last night.  He doesn’t even remember if Derek decided Stiles was off his rocker—if he no longer wanted to see him.  

He pushes open the door and heads straight for the register, ordering a latte, to calm his nerves.  While he waits for his drink to be made, he discreetly glances around the shop, looking for Derek.  

Eventually, Stiles spots him sitting by a window.  He’s wearing a dark leather jacket, grey scarf wrapped around his neck, his stubble as artful as ever.  And he’s looking directly at Stiles.  When he sees Stiles has noticed him, he raises one dark brow.

Stiles startles when the barista calls out his name, and grabs his latte with a quick “thanks,” making his way over to Derek’s table.

“You’re here,”  Stiles says in amazement when he slides into the booth.

“Was I not supposed to be?”  Derek asks, his lip quirking in amusement.

Stiles shakes his head rapidly.  “I’m just surprised is all.  You met me yesterday.”

“And?”

Stiles blinks.  “I was drunk off my ass, and spouting the craziest shit.”

Derek smiles, shrugging.  “I’ve heard worse.”

“I find that hard to believe,”  Stiles remarks, sipping his drink, moaning at the taste of gingerbread on his tongue.  He looks up to see Derek glaring out the window, a faint blush on his cheeks.

“You haven’t met my uncle,”  Derek says after a long silence, a faint hint of anger in his tone.

“You know what they say, there’s always that _one_ relative at thanksgiving dinner.”

Derek snorts.  “That would be Peter.”

“Anyways,”  Stiles says, drawing the conversation away from what seems like a sore topic for Derek, “The triskelion?”

Derek nods his head, weirdly staring at Stiles again.  He did it a few times last night when he thought Stiles wasn’t looking, and even when he was.  The guy has got his own unique set of quirks, that’s for sure.  

“Did you have any particular questions about it?”

Stiles taps a finger against his lip in thought.  “What does it mean if it’s carved on a weapon?”

“You have to understand that the symbol doesn’t have only one meaning.  It appears in many different cultures, all over the world.  Usually they denote different things, some interpretations are even lost to time.”

“Then what about in a pre-Celtic, Gaulish context?  A single triskelion carved near the hilt of a blade.”

Derek takes a shuddering breath, staring at Stiles even more intensely than before.  “Pre-Celtic Gaul was a very large area of land.”

Stiles closes his eyes and recalls the one memory that’s the most prominent.  The one the Trojan flashbacked to in his last moments: snow, the thin air, and a vicious betrayal.  “Somewhere high and snowy.”

“The alps,”  Derek breathes.

Stiles blinks his eyes open.  “Yeah, that seems about right.”

“There was a tribe who migrated from their homeland in Germania to Transalpine Gaul.  Likely they were banished because of shifting powers.  In all the art and artefacts they’ve left behind, the triskelion feature heavily.  It was this tribe that introduced the triskelion to the Celts, before disappearing from archaeological finds altogether.”

“What happened to them?”  Stiles asks.

Derek smiles ruefully.  “They likely died out.”

“What did the triskelion mean to them?”

“Some in the tribe took it to mean the progression of being:  life, death, and reincarnation.  For some it represented family:  two parents and a child.”  Derek pauses, licking his lips nervously, before continuing on, “For others it symbolized revenge.”

Stiles sits back in the booth, his mind running a mile a minute.  “On a weapon, revenge seems the most plausible meaning, right?”

“It could be,”  Derek says, “But it also could be the hope for reincarnation.”

“Then by cutting those symbols into his victims’ backs, what’s this killer doing?  Hoping his victims reincarnate?  Into what?”

Derek sighs, opening and shutting his mouth a few times like he wants to tell Stiles something, but doesn’t know how.  Eventually, he says,  “Into the person they’ve been searching for, for a very long time.”

***

Talking with Stiles, without actually telling him anything, is exhausting.  He’s curious to a fault and it’s obvious he thinks Derek’s hiding something which, to his credit, Derek is.

He washes his hands in the Starbucks bathroom, dreading, but also looking forward to returning to the conversation they were having.  Derek likes Stiles, he likes him quite a lot.  His mind moves quicker than a fiddle, he’s entertaining, and incredibly funny.  

Derek doesn’t think it would be a hardship to fall in love with him.

He remembers when Laura met her soulmate, a few years before Peter met Alda.  He had been a young herder who had lost his way in a storm, stumbling upon their settlement, frozen to his bone, and nearly dead.  Laura had taken one look at him and nearly dropped a baby Cora snuggled in her arms.  It had taken a while for her soulmate to warm up to her.  But for Laura, it was like she had fallen head over heels for the man instantly.

When Cora had found her soulmate, a noble Egyptian woman, a thousand years after Laura died, she disliked her instantly.  

Derek had to talk Cora down from killing her soulmate before the full moon rose and their souls became fused.  Cora had thought it would be better to wait for her soulmate’s next reincarnation, than have to tough out the rest of her life with a woman she thought was insufferable.

Derek had to explain that doing so would be the greatest mistake she could ever make.  Nothing hurts more than the death of a soulmate mid soul meld.  

His family had all felt the natural death of their soulmates.  That’s a given.  Sometimes they live on opposite ends of the world, and it’s impossible to find them within a lifetime.  

But once they meet their soulmate, once they touch them and feel that spark, that’s when their souls begin to fuse back into one; when the curse placed on their ancestors begins to come undone.  

They always have until the next full moon to halt the process.  To kill their soulmate and continue on, ageless, as they brave the years, waiting for them to reincarnate again.  But most of them let the full moon rise, choosing to break the curse, to become human and live out the rest of their lives with their other half.

Of every last member of their tribe, Peter and Derek are the only ones left.  The only ones who know what it is like to lose a soulmate, mid soul meld.  

When Alda was killed, Peter took a dive off the deep end.  He was cruel and sadistic before, but when his bond with Alda severed, he went insane.

For Derek, losing his soulmate to Peter’s blade—the night before the full moon, when their souls were so close to becoming one again—felt like the end.  He doesn’t want to feel like that ever again.

Derek knows Stiles dreams about all his past deaths at Peter’s hand, but the one he asked Derek about, the one that took place in the middle of winter, high in the alps, snow blowing up a maelstrom.  That’s the one Stiles remembers the clearest, the one he dreams of the most.

The one where Derek had known his soulmate for twenty-nine days, but Peter had murdered him on the thirtieth.

Derek walks back to his and Stiles’ table, his eyes fixated on his soulmate.  Stiles seems to sense him staring, and he looks up with a smile, one that Derek returns fully.  Stiles’ eyes widen, and a light blush floods high on his cheeks.   He jerks, spilling coffee down the front of his sweater.

Derek will never let Peter hurt him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's snowing like crazy outside, like absolutely crazy, I can't even see out my window

“Thanks for letting me borrow a spare shirt,”  Stiles says sheepishly, pulling his coffee stained sweater over his head, “At least now you fully appreciate how much of a klutz I am,”  Stiles mumbles, and of course the sweater gets caught around his head.  Typical.  “Umm, a little help, please?”

Derek chuckles and sweeps into the rescue, helping Stiles unravel it from the chaos that is his freakishly long arms.

“Thanks,”  Stiles sighs in relief.  He knows his hair is probably a staticy mess, standing up in all directions, but Stiles is trying not to focus on that.

They’re in Derek’s office, which is conveniently located within a five minute walk from the Starbucks.  It’s also tucked in a far corner of the building, which means it’s quiet and private, two facts that serve to make Stiles feel more nervous than usual.  He’s just glad he layers up like a champ in winter, or he’d be flashing his pasty chest at the adonis of a man in front of him.  

As it is, he tugs on the shirt, moving to do the buttons, but Derek beats him to it.  Stiles can feel himself flushing, so he looks away from Derek’s hairy knuckles moving up the shirt, to over his shoulder.

“Hey,”  Stiles remarks, surprised, “Those are triskelions.”  He points to a newspaper clipping tacked to the wall showing a weathered stone structure with the spiral runes carved into it.

“Yes,”  Derek says, nodding,  “It’s from an archeological dig site.  The structure is attributed to the tribe I was telling you about.  It’s the oldest known appearance of a triskelion in Gaul.”  He runs his hand lightly over the front of Stiles’ shirt.  “There.”

“Thanks.”  Stiles blushes, stepping around Derek.  Walking closer, he skims over the article.  “What’s the structure supposed to be?”

“It’s a shed for storing grain.”

Stiles pauses, tilting his head to the side in confusion.  “How do you know?  It says they haven’t excavated it deep enough to know its purpose.”

“Gut feeling,”  Derek says, smiling so sweetly Stiles’ heart skips a beat.

“You have a really nice smile,”  Stiles blurts out, only to clasp his hands over his mouth.  He did not mean to say that.  Curse his over talkative mouth and its propensity to say things at inopportune moments.

Derek looks like he’s trying not to laugh.  He leans back against his desk, arms folded over his chest, and Stiles can’t help but let his eye flit over his muscles in appreciation.

“Are you checking me out?”  Derek asks slyly, like he already knows Stiles was, and just wants to make him blush.

Stiles grins cheekily, Derek’s obvious flirting making him brave.  “And if I was?”

“I would say, Mr. Stilinski,”  Derek says leaning closer, his voice low,  “That I don’t mind at all.”  

Stiles never thought he would be one to develop a professor’s kink, but that goes to show just how wrong he is about most things.

Stiles jokingly swipes a hand over his brow.  “Well, that’s a load off my mind.”

Derek chuckles.  Reaching out, he lets his fingers play with the cuff of Stiles’ button down.  “You should go to dinner with me, tonight.  On a date.”

Stiles opens and shuts his mouth a few times, before remembering that he can’t.  He always eats dinner with Lydia and Allison on Sunday nights.  

Derek must see the hesitation in his expression because he drops his hand and backs away, something akin to disappointment in his expression.  “If you don’t want to-”

“No, that’s not it.”  Stiles shakes his head.  “I just have plans with Lydia and Allison, and I don’t want to cancel them considering how badly I was acting yesterday.  I still need to apologize.”

“I understand,”  Derek says wryly, “Maybe another day?”

“Yeah.”  Stiles grins.  “I think I’d like that a lot.”

***

Derek’s crouched on the fire escape outside Allison apartment, committing a gross violation of privacy.  

Stalking Stiles is not his greatest moment, he can admit, but it’s necessary considering his murderous uncle is out there trying to kill him.  His murderous uncle, who is _also_ stalking Stiles.

Derek hangs his head in shame.  

He catches someone mentioning his name, and his ears perk up, curious.  It’s Allison who brought him up, her voice teasing, as she asks Stiles about his conversation with Derek at Starbucks.  Stiles sputters, and Derek hears the clink of something being knocked over, probably a glass of water.

“Nothing much,”  Stiles says hurriedly, “Just some questions about the threefold spiral.”

“You’re not supposed to reveal details of an open case to a civilian, Stiles,”  Lydia says disapprovingly.

“I haven’t told him anything he doesn’t already know.  Besides we hardly even talked about the case.  I mostly asked about details from my dreams.”

Lydia huffs.  “You can’t tell people about those all willy nilly.  Don’t you remember what happened to your mother?”

Cutlery clinks, and Allison takes a deep intake of breath.  A heavy, oppressive silence follows and Derek can almost picture Stiles’ glare.  

After some time, Stiles sighs.  

“I don’t have dementia, Lyds,”  he says quietly.

“All I’m saying is that it’s simple enough for you to get an MRI, to be certain,”  Lydia says, her voice betraying just how concerned she is,  “Our work insurance covers it, if that’s what you’re worried about.  I checked for you.”

“That’s not the point,”  Stiles says, a hint of frustration in his tone, “I’m not sick, I’m sure of it.  This is something else.”

Derek hears Lydia click her tongue.  “I don’t understand why you have to be so stubborn, Stiles.”

“Are you saying you’d rather I have dementia?”  Stiles asks, sarcastically.

“What the _fuck_ , Stiles.   _No_ ,”  Lydia asserts firmly,  “I’m just saying, there’s a genetically high chance of it happening.  Besides, what other explanation could there be?  You keep seeing a random man following you around.”

“It’s not that difficult to believe he has a stalker, love,”  Allison states calmly.

“Ally, you don’t understand,”  Lydia argues, “He says he was dreaming about the man for months before he ever saw him in the flesh.”

Derek purses his lips, feeling guilty.  He wonders if he should just come out and tell Stiles about Peter—about how much danger he’s in.  Normally, Derek would be afraid to reveal to any human about what he is.  Derek fears rejection, persecution, and the human desire for eternal life more than anything.  

Some humans would do anything to live forever.  Derek, however, thinks immortality quickly loses its charm after the first few hundred years.   

Cora never told her soulmate that she was a werewolf.  She didn’t need to, because that first full moon after Cora met her ensured a broken curse.  She was no longer a werewolf.  Although, Cora’s soulmate likely suspected something was going on, as the years went by and Derek never aged a day.

“That doesn’t mean a thing and you know it,”  Allison says,  “Stiles could have met the man before, and only his subconscious remembers him.”

“That’s stretching, and you know it,”  Lydia says.

“I don’t understand why this has to be such a big deal.  It’s not like it’s any of your damned business.”  Stiles grumbles.

Allison gasps.  “Stiles, c’mon, that’s unfair—”  

“You are my best friend.”  Lydia states abruptly, her voice shaking with emotion,  “You’re the second most important person in my life.  I’ve been by your side since we were children.  I held your hand while your mother was dying.  I watched the pain and misery you went through as you watched her slowly fade away.  I can’t watch the same happen to you,” Lydia’s voice breaks,  “I just can’t.”  

“Lyds, c’mon, don’t cry,”  Stiles pleads.

“You’re a few minutes too late for that,”  Lydia huffs.

Stiles sniffs, “I hate it when you cry, it makes me want to cry.  Don’t make me cry Lyds, it gets really ugly.”

“Fuck off, Stiles,”  Lydia mutters,  “Your face is already ugly.”

“Peas, anyone?”  Allison asks.

Derek smiles.  Tuning out the feelings-fest within, he turns his gaze to the street below.  People walk along, going about their own business, oblivious to the fact that Derek’s watching them from above.  

Movement out of the corner of his eye distracts him, and he turns his head, just in time to see the sweeping tail of an ash coloured wolf disappear into a dark alley.

***

Stiles flips the light switch on in his apartment and hangs up his coat.  Turning around, he sees Derek Hale sitting on his couch, and lets out an unholy shriek.  He steps back in shock, his brain trying to find a reasonable explanation for why Derek is in his house when Stiles definitely did not let him in.  

Stiles can’t manage come up with even one.  Instead, he reaches conclusions that make his breath catch in his throat.  Maybe Derek’s working with Stiles’ stalker?  Or, maybe he’s the mass murderer who’s carving triskelions into the backs of poor, unsuspecting New Yorkers?  The last one explains so much, especially about Derek’s fascination with the symbol.

With his heart beating up a staccato, Stiles backs away from the living room.  He sees Derek get up, and Stiles panics, diving into the kitchen.  After the last few months he’s been having, he doesn’t care that Derek is the hottest guy to ever ask him out.  Stiles will stab him.

He yanks a knife from the kitchen block, but before he can brandish it around menacingly, Derek’s suddenly in front of him, grabbing his hand, and stopping his movement.

“Shhh, Stiles, calm down,”  Derek whispers gently—like a hunter right before putting down his prey.

“Shhh, my pasty white ass!”  Stiles squeaks, attempting to yank his hand out of Derek’s iron clad grip, failing spectacularly.  Stiles has _some_ muscle mass and he’s panicked out of his mind, running on so much adrenaline.  Yet, Derek makes him feel like he’s the weakest person in the world.  

Stiles’ blood runs cold at the thought that he might die in his kitchen tonight.  

“Calm down,”  Derek repeats, his voice calm.  The exact opposite of what Stiles feels.

“Are you fucking kidding me?  Calm down!?”  Stiles shrieks, “You’re about to murder me, and you want me to calm down!?”

Derek frowns, and his grip slackens on Stiles’ arm.  It’s not enough for Stiles to pull away, but enough to stop it from bruising in the morning.  If he’s even going to live to see the next morning.  

“I’m not going to kill you,”  Derek says incredulously, his eyebrows scrunching up, like even the thought is ludicrous.

“Okay, I get it,”  Stiles rushes to say, ignoring Derek’s obvious lie,  “I rejected your offer of dinner, but it was only a situational thing, if you had asked me out tomorrow, I would have said yes.  You don’t need to kill me over something like that.  I promise if you let me go now, I won’t call the cops.”

“Somehow I don’t believe you,”  Derek says, his tone wry.

“Scouts honor,”  Stiles swears.

“I can see you crossing your fingers in the fridge’s reflection.”  

Stiles’ curses his obsessive need to clean everything stainless until it gleams like a mirror.  He blames Lydia’s mandates at the morgue.  

Stiles stammers, knowing he dug himself into that hole.

“Stiles’ I swear to you, no harm will ever come to you by my hand.  But I have something to tell you, and I know you won’t believe me at first, but I need you to suspend all disbelief and trust in what I say to you next.”

“Yeah, okay,”  Stiles agrees, nodding rapidly.  Maybe if he agrees, Derek won’t kill him slow, like all his other victims.  Derek rolls his eyes, like he knows Stiles won’t believe anything he says, but he continues anyway.

“I’m a werewolf.”

Stiles snorts, before his eyes widen in horror, realising that if he wants to get out of this mess alive, he needs to play along.  “I mean, of course you’re a werewolf, you’re already very hairy.  Lycanthropy and hairiness go hand in hand.”

Derek purses his lips.  “I’m also over six thousand years old.”

Stiles’ mouth drops open.  “And I’m a flying pig!”

Derek sighs heavily, before calmly prying the knife from Stiles’ hand.  Stiles’ winces, knowing that this is truly the end.  The sad thing is he’ll never get to say goodbye to his dad or Lydia.  At least he’ll see his mom again.  

He closes his eyes, and waits.  Something akin to a snap sounds, and Stiles cracks open one eye.

The knife is buried to the hilt in Derek’s chest, blood blooming like a flower over his white shirt.  

Stiles recoils in horror and Derek’s hand slips from his wrist.  “What the fuck!?”  Stiles exclaims, stepping so far back, he bumps into the fridge.  Derek’s eyes follow him, glowing an impossible red.  He startles, and just about jumps a foot in the air.  “Oh my god, you just killed yourself in my fucking kitchen.”  Stiles grabs at his hair, falling back against his fridge in support.  “What the hell am I supposed to tell the cops?”

Derek rolls his eyes, and then proceeds to pull the knife from his chest with a sickening sucking noise.  Blood flows like a waterfall, absolutely soaking his shirt and pants, pooling onto the floor.  

Stiles throws up a little in his mouth.  He’s used to seeing a lot of shit at his job, but blood spurting like it does in a Quentin Tarantino movie is just a bit too much for him to handle.

“Holy shit, that’s so disgusting, eww.”  Something chunky that Stiles is trying not to associate with organ tissue, falls from the hole in Derek’s chest, slopping onto the tile.  “Why’d you do that, _christ_ , don’t you know how difficult it is to get blood out of grout?  I get enough of this at work, I don’t have to put up with it at home.”

Derek lays the knife down on the countertop, and Stiles cringes.  He’s going to have to sanitize the shit out of that, after he pours bleach on everything else.  New York crime scene cleaners are infamously shitty at their jobs.  Someone always forgets the luminol, and ends up missing so many spots.  

“I’m not dead,”  Derek says, surprisingly calm, considering he’s a dead man walking.  

Stiles grips the fridge handle, trying to stay upright, all the while wondering how Derek manages to look so steady on his feet. “Yeah, but the moment you are, I’m calling the cops on your dead ass.”

“I’m not dead, and I’m not going to be, at least not for the next week.  After that, I guess I’m fair game,”  Derek says matter of factly as he unbuttons his soaked through—now red—button up.  Peeling it off his chest, he drops it to the floor.

Stiles’ eyes widen as Derek grabs a few sheets of paper towel and begins wiping away the gore from his chest, only to reveal nothing but hairy, slightly pink flesh underneath.

Stiles places a hand on his forehead.  “I think I need to sit down.”

A few minutes later, Stiles rests on the couch, while Derek hands him a glass of cold water.  Stiles chugs it down gratefully.

“So let me get this straight, you’re an immortal werewolf who's been living for more that six thousand years, and you spend your days teaching snot nosed brats norse mythology instead of ruling the world?”

Derek smiles, sitting down beside Stiles.  He wears one of Stiles’ spare shirts.  Derek’s own shirt is triple bagged in the trash can with enough blood on it for someone to warrant calling the cops.  “Something like that.”

“I need some whiskey,”  Stiles mutters, hanging his head between his knees, while Derek pats him on the back.  “By the way, you’re cleaning up the mess you made in my kitchen.  Couldn’t you at least stab yourself in the bathtub?  I eat in there, you know.”

Derek shrugs sheepishly, “I didn’t think it would bleed that much.”

“Haven’t you ever been stabbed before?”  Stiles says, before making a face,  “Actually, don’t answer that.”

“Not in the chest,”  Derek says, playing with the hem of the too tight orange and blue shirt Stiles gave him to wear,  “The leg, the neck, the stomach yes.”  Stiles feels himself turning green.  “I figured the chest has less arteries to make a mess.”

Stiles purses his lips, unamused, “You’re six thousand years old, you should at least know proper anatomy by now.”

Derek snorts, “I apprenticed with a doctor in the middle ages, but leeches were never my favourite tool.”

“Le— leeches?”  Stiles stutters,  “I am actually horrified.”

“As was I.  Besides, the monks made me shave the top of my head, it was not my best look.”

Stiles chuckles humorlessly, running a nervous hand through his hair.  “I can’t believe we’re having this discussion.  Some crazy asshole is following me.  The hottest guy to ever ask me out is a real life furry.  And I’m still having fucked up fever dreams.”

Derek looks like he wants to say something, but then the moment passes and he gets up from the couch.  “Go to sleep, Stiles, you’ve had a long day.  I’ll make sure the kitchen’s clean when you get up.”

Stiles doesn’t even say thank you before walking like a zombie to his room, collapsing on the bed and falling right to sleep.  It’s only fair, considering Derek made the mess in the first place.

***

Stiles knows he’s dreaming.  He sits on the bank of a flowing river, the brisk air blowing strands of red hair around his face.  He’s never been a redhead before.  

His deft fingers weave the pile of grasses and flowers gathered in his lap into a circlet.  They grow numb from the chill, but still he continues.  Stiles knows that an important date is approaching, and he needs this done as soon as possible.

Someone laughs, and Stiles turns around, feeling a happy smile spread over his face.  He would recognize that laugh anywhere.  

Derek appears before him—hair long to his shoulders, beard thick and black, a cocky sway in his stance.  “Drustan,”  Derek says with a smile, walking forward until he stands right in front of Stiles.  He kneels, lifting fingers to smooth along Stiles’— _Drustan’s_ —cheek.  Derek says something in a flowing language, a smirk on his face, as his fingers drift to caress Stiles’ bottom lip.  

Whatever Derek says makes Stiles smile, he dips his head and his cheeks burn.  With Drustan’s body out of Stiles’ control, he says something back in the same language.  Stiles lifts the unfinished crown, placing it on Derek’s head, feeling himself quirk a brow.  

Derek licks his lips, eyes growing dark with lust.  The thumb resting on his lip slips into Stiles’ mouth, expectant—wanting.  Stiles smirks, feeling something akin to overwhelming affection, and _sucks_.  Derek groans, pulling his finger away, but in turn, he leans closer, whispering into Stiles’ ear.  Whatever he says, it makes Stiles nod, head bobbing enthusiastically.

Derek bites at his neck, and after that all bets are off.

Derek pushes Stiles back against the bank with a heavy hand on his chest, climbing on top of him.  He takes off the crown and places it carefully—reverentially—to the side as he reaches for the lacings at Stiles’ tunic.  Eyes locked, Derek pulls at them, tugging, until the tunic falls away, revealing Stiles’ chest to the chill air.

Derek grins, saying something unknown that makes Stiles’ dick twitch with interest.  His nipples pebble from a mixture of the suggestive words and the cold.  He breathes heavily, chest moving up and down in anticipation.  Derek leans forward until his chest is pressed to Stiles’.  Until Stiles can feel the thump of his heart against Derek’s.  

He captures Derek’s lips in a searing kiss.  Hand wandering down towards the fabric gathered at Derek’s waist.  

“ _Theodoric Njáll Fenrisúlfr_.”  A cold voice says, making a shiver—that has nothing to do with the weather—run down Stiles’ spine.  He breaks the kiss and pulls away, just as Derek sighs heavily.  

Stiles’ heart trips a beat when he sees who interrupted them.  

His stalker stands among the long grasses, an impatient look upon his face as he stares uncannily at Derek.  He drawls on again, saying something else that makes Derek freeze.  

“Petrus,”  Derek says, placatingly as he climbs off Stiles’ body.  Stiles gathers his tunic to his chest, trying to preserve at least some of his dignity.  His stalker’s eyes flit to Stiles.  They linger for a long moment on his hair—eyes softening, before blinking and turning colder than ice—until Derek moves to stand in front of him, blocking his view.

Stiles dresses quickly as Derek speaks with Stiles’ stalker.   _Petrus_.  

He feels scared, worried even.  If there’s one thing he knows about the dreams, it’s that he always dies at the end.  

A snowflake drifts slowly from the greying sky, landing delicately on the back of Stiles’ hand.  He watches as it melts away to nothing.  Stiles cannot help but recall a recurring memory from all those dreams before.   _Blood on pure white snow_.  

He shivers, and not from the cold.  Even when Derek notices and shrugs off his own cloak to wrap it around Stiles’ shoulders, it doesn’t help.

Snow begins to fall from the sky, forewarning an oncoming blizzard, and the temperature drops in all but a few minutes.  He shivers, until he feels a warm hand slip into his.  Derek pulls on him, taking him away from the river, back to camp.  

Petrus has disappeared, but it doesn’t make Stiles feel any better.  The man is as slippery as a snake.

Stiles blinks, and finds himself lying in his bedroll.  Derek’s arm wrapped around his waist.  He feels nothing but warmth and love as he drifts to sleep with a smile on his face.

He opens his eyes, and suddenly he’s out in the storm, snow swirling around his face.  Petrus stands in front of him, clothed in nothing but a thin shift,  _soaked_ with blood.  Stiles looks down at his own arms, and screams.

His pale skin is covered up to the elbow in blood.  Almost like he was bathed in it.  Like he was holding onto someone as they were murdered in their sleep.

Stiles collapses to his knees in the snow, throwing up the contents of his stomach as Petrus looks on in disgust.

 _Derek_.

Stiles sobs uncontrollably.  Tears stream down his cheeks, freezing before they fall.  

He yelps when Petrus grabs his hair, yanking him up from the snow.  Stiles claws at Petrus’ face, scratching and screaming.  He feels a nail dig into soft skin, and he tears with all his strength, feeling—once again—the flow of blood against his skin.

Petrus laughs, pulling Stiles closer, until he’s close enough to feel the warmth of Petrus’ breath.  Right until he sees the bleeding cut he inflicted heal before his eyes.

Stiles flinches, whispering something that makes Petrus grin wider, manically.

He breaks his blade on Stiles’ ribs with the first thrust.  The second one meets his heart, true.  

Before Stiles falls into the snow, bleeding out within minutes.  Before Petrus throws his head back and howls like a frenzied wolf.  Before Stiles somehow feels Derek come to life again.  Before Stiles takes his last breath.  Petrus whispers in his ear.

“ _You will bring my Alda back._ ”

“Stiles!”

Stiles shoots out of bed, smacking his head on Derek’s.

“Shit,”  Stiles whines, rubbing his forehead.  Derek leans over him, wearing a worried expression.

“You okay?”  Derek asks.

“Fuck no.  This is the first time I’ve ever dreamt of you,”  Stiles says, wincing, “I put a flower crown on your head.”

“Oh,”  Derek says dumbly.

“ _Oh_?  What the hell does that mean?”  Stiles asks angrily.  Derek moves, sitting down on the side of the bed, defeat in the slant of his shoulders.  Stiles sits up.  Reaching for Derek, he grabs at his arm.  “I know you know my stalker, there’s no point in hiding that anymore.  What the hell aren’t you telling me?”

“I…”  Derek starts, only to trail off again.  “It’s complicated.”

“So uncomplicated it.”  Stiles turns Derek so they face each other once again.  “Who is Petrus?”

Derek sighs.  “My uncle.”

Stiles is taken aback.  He didn’t see that coming.  “Why does he keep killing me in my dreams, and stalking me when I’m awake?”

“Because he thinks I wronged him thousands of years ago.”

“What does that have to do with me?”  Stiles asks, half curious and half scared of the answer he will receive.  

Derek closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.

“Because you’re my soulmate.”

***

“There’s no such thing as soulmates,”  Stiles states surely, and Derek cannot help but find that incredibly naive.

Derek raises his brow.  “Just as there’s no such thing as immortal werewolves?”

Stiles snorts.  “Fair point.”

“It’s why you keep ‘dreaming’ of your deaths.  They aren’t dreams, they’re memories of your past lives.  Theoretically, they’re supposed to help you find me.  It’s how my sister’s soulmate found her.  But, because you keep dying violently, they’ve corrupted, and instead of dreaming about me, you’re dreaming about Peter killing you over and over again.”

“He told me I will bring his Alda back, what does that mean?  Who is Alda?”

“The dream you just had, was the first time he killed you.  By murdering you with a triskelion engraved blade, he figured he could corrupt your reincarnation cycle, and make it come faster.  When he killed you that first time, he embedded a part of his soul in you.  Alda is his soulmate, but because he killed you, he ensured that you’d always reincarnate together because her soul is attracted to the part of Peter left inside you.  Right now, someone you know, someone close to you is Alda, and you don’t even know it.  But once Peter finds her, he will try to kill both of you again before the next full moon.”

“But why?”  Stiles asks, puzzled.  “Why would he want to kill his own soulmate?”

Derek shrugs.  “Because he’s crazy, because he’s an asshole, because he doesn’t like what he sees when he looks at her.  She’s never _right_ to him.  She’s never Alda.”

Stiles groans, scrubbing his hands through his hair.  “I don’t understand, what does the full moon have to do with anything?”

“We are the descendants of Fenrir,”  Derek explains, “Cursed by Odin to roam the earth, eternally searching for our other half.  When we finally meet them, we have a choice.  Wait for the next full moon and have our souls become one—meaning we lose our werewolf heritage, and become completely human, free to live out the rest of our lives with our soulmate.  Or kill our soulmates, and continue to roam the earth, a cursed being.”

“Are there any more of you?”

“Peter and I are the only ones left, but after I kill him, it will be just me.”  Derek reaches for Stiles’ hands, wondering if Stiles will pull away, or if he will accept what Derek asks.  “I intend to let the full moon rise, with you alive this time.  After that, I want to spend the rest of my life getting to know you.  Like I didn’t get to the first time.”

Stiles stares at him, his mouth gaping like a fish.  “Did you just propose to me?”

“Our relationship doesn’t have to be romantic,”  Derek clarifies hurriedly.  “It’s up to you what you want us to be.  I would prefer to stay by your side, but I am giving you a choice.  You’re the other half of my soul, but that doesn’t mean I own you.”  

Peter thought he owned Alda, and still thinks he does.  Derek has no intention of repeating his uncle’s mistakes.

“So if I said, after we figure out who Alda is and get rid of Peter, that I never wanted to see you again, you would respect my wishes?”

Derek squeezes his eyes shut, his heart hurting, but he steels his resolve and continues.  “It would pain me greatly, but in the end, that’s your choice, and I will respect it.”      

“Okay,”  Stiles says, “Cool.  Now let’s get the big bad.”

Derek smiles fondly, Stiles truly is his soulmate.  He didn’t even blink when Derek suggested they kill Peter, which means he fully understands the urgency of the situation.  Good.  Derek wouldn’t even know how to being convincing someone that Peter was too dangerous to lock up in a prison.  He would find some way to escape, one way or another.  

“It’s not the simple, Peter first has to meet Alda’s reincarnation, and after he does, we have until the next full moon to prevent him from killing her, and you.  I don’t even know where to begin looking for someone else’s soulmate.  Peter’s the expert on that.  I hardly even knew Alda, I wouldn’t be able to recognize her reincarnation if I met them.”

“You’re forgetting,”  Stiles taps his temple with one long finger,  “I have the dreams, and if what you’re saying is right—Alda has always incarnated by my side, as someone close to me—she should appear in them.”

“But will you recognize her?”  Derek asks skeptically.

“I’m sure I can figure something out.”  Stiles says, making a shooing gesture with his hands.  “Now get out of my room, I have an extra long shift at work tomorrow.”

Derek gets up, allowing Stiles to grab all the blankets, swaddling himself up again.  “I’ll sleep on the couch.”

Stiles smacks his lips, “That kitchen better be spotless when I wake in the morning,”  he says sleepily.

“I already scrubbed it clean,”  Derek pouts, wriggling his sensitive nose.  He can still smell the bleach.  But it lands on deaf ears, Stiles having fallen right to sleep.

***

Stiles zips up the body bag and slides the drawer back in the freezer, closing the door with a snap.  He picks up his clipboard, and goes over his notes.  He’ll have to enter them into the system, and call the detective running the case and tell him he has no case.  What the detective thought was a violent murder, was instead a run of the mill hemorrhage.

Stiles pushes his glasses up his nose.  Mistakes happen all the time, especially during bonus season—cops start seeing murders when there’s none.  They all want that elusive Christmas bonus, hoping it can help them make up being absent most of the year to their families.  Stiles remembers those first few Christmases after his mother’s death all too clearly.

He’s walking towards the office when he notices a couple of pieces of equipment left lying around.  Stiles curses the new ME Lydia hired, the man always forgets to put his tools away.

“This looks comfortable.”

Stiles startles, dropping his clipboard, and it clinks against the tiled floors.  He turns around, a lecture on not scaring people in a place where dead bodies sit in freezers on the tip of his tip of his tongue.  Instead, who he sees has him grabbing the handle of the bone saw, holding it up in front of himself protectively.

Peter scoffs.  “Is that supposed to scare me?”

“Indulge me,”  Stiles spits, hand wavering when he remembers Derek stabbing himself and pulling the knife out after, unscathed.  If Peter attacks him here, there’s no way those self-defence lessons he took in high-school will help.  “What the fuck do you want?”

Peter smiles.  He trails his hand over the stainless steel countertop, fingers tapping out a pattern.  “Derek told you all about me, didn’t he?”

“And if he did?”  Stiles asks warily.

“Then you know what I am,”  Peter says, just as an awful screeching sounds.  Black claws dig gouges into the countertop, renting metal easily as if it was butter.  Peter steps closer to Stiles, and he shrinks back, curling in on himself.  “You know what I can do.  You know you should be scared of the big, bad wolf.”

“You’re such a cliche,”  Stiles says, voice shaking.  He’s putting on a brave front, but he feels anything but.  He’s scared out of his mind, and he knows Peter can see it, probably even smell it, going by how much he’s sweating.

Peter smirks cruelly, stopping until he stands only a foot away, backing Stiles into a table.  “I like it when you talk back to me.  It’ll make shoving my blade into your gut all the more pleasurable.  I’ll get to watch that smug look slide right off your face.”

“What’s going on here?”  Lydia steps into the room, her labcoat half on, hair still loose around her shoulders.  Stiles remembers that she’s supposed to take the shift after his.  He’s tempted to scream at her to run away, but he fears it would only infuriate Peter more.  He’s extremely indiscriminate in whom he murders.

“ _Alda_?”  Peter says in disbelief.  Stiles’ eyes widen in realization.

“Lyds, _fuck_ , get out of here!”  Stiles exclaims, flailing his hands at her, hoping she would just listen to him for once in her life.  Lydia double takes, but doesn’t run.  

Peter throws his fist back and punches Stiles right across the face.  

It feels like he was just hit by a train.  Stars burst in his vision, and he vaguely hears Lydia shriek his name.  He falls to the floor, tasting blood on his tongue.  He watches Peter walk calmly in front of Lydia, he can’t do a single thing.  Whenever he tries to get up, his head spins, and he finds himself crashing to the floor again.

If Peter murders his best friend in front of him, Stiles won’t be able to do anything.  

Lydia stares at Peter with a mixture of fear, defiance, and anger.  

“No, please, don’t!”  Stiles sobs, begging Peter not to hurt her.  But the hand Peter raises to her isn’t violent.  Peter picks a lock of hair from her shoulder and caresses it, rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger.  Lydia startles, stepping back, tugging her hair out of Peter’s grip.

“My Alda, you’ve returned to me,”  Peter says wondrously, reaching forward again, he runs his thumb beneath one of Lydia’s hazel eyes.  “It worked, it finally worked.  You’re her, my Alda, my love.”

Lydia remains frozen in spot, and Stiles feels blackness creep on his vision.  Right before he passes out, he sees Lydia turned towards him, a terrified look upon her face.

***

The maize parts as he pushes through the long stalks.  A soft breeze blows gently on his bronzed skin.  It’s still slightly warm from the summer sun, but bears a slight chill, indicating the upcoming harvest season.  

He caresses the developing corn—his favourite of the three sisters—knowing this season will be fruitful.  The beans and squash are doing well.

His moccasins pad over the rich earth, and Stiles considers taking them off to feel the soil between his toes, but he wants to be clean for this meeting.  The tassels on his dress shiver as he walks to meet his lover—his future husband.

The stalks part, and his lover smiles like the sun when he sees him.  He takes Stiles into his arms and pulls him close, pressing his forehead against his before whispering his name reverentially.  His lover’s large hands rest on the curves of his hips, moving up and down his body, warming him through his thin summer dress.  His lover respects him, and doesn’t touch him inappropriately, but he still manages to be comforting.

Stiles’ grandmother is clan mother and the most respected woman in the band, he is being trained to take her place.  Much is expected of him, and he works hard to take care of his clan—farming the land, helping to repair the longhouse, fishing in the many tributaries.  His lover is his only guilty pleasure, but soon he will be more than that, for Stiles has his grandmother’s blessing to marry.  They can finally be together.

Stiles whispers the good news in his ear, and his lover grins in excitement, picking Stiles up and spinning him around happily, until he begs him to stop, laughing hysterically.  They’ve been waiting for this day since they were introduced as children, when his lover was assigned to protect Stiles—the future clan mother.

His lover runs his hands through Stiles’ long, silky black hair, as he often does, before tugging him into a searing kiss.

Stiles feels the memories flash by.  A lifetime passes in only a moment, but it’s enough to make him choke with emotion.  He doesn’t think Peter has killed him in this incarnation.  The flashes slow to a halt and he feels himself lying on a bedroll. surrounded by his children and grandchildren, his husband by his side.  Stiles’ hair is still long as it rests in two plaits, simply, across his breast.  It’s no longer raven black.  

His husband reaches for one grey plait with gnarled fingers, carefully undoing the braid, pulling it apart until he can run his fingers through the soft, freed hair.

Those gentle, loving fingers are all Stiles feels when his heart gives out.  All he hears are the soft breaths of the many generations they have given life to, together.

***

Stiles wakes to fingers scrubbing through his hair.  He feels a straw touch his bottom lip, and Stiles gulps down the water, gratefully.

“He’s awake,”  Someone whispers.

“I’ll get the doctor,”  Someone else says, and Stiles hears the opening and closing of a door.

He cracks his eyes open to a room in low light.  His eyes are crusted with gunk, and he reaches up, rubbing at them until he sees clearly.

“How are you feeling?”  Lydia asks, looking at him worriedly.

“Like someone punched me in the face,”  He says, voice hoarse, “Do I have a concussion?”

“A minor one, you already went for an MRI.”

Stiles reaches for her, his hands shaking.  Lydia clasps their hands together, tightly.  “How’d you get away?”  He asks wondrously.

“I didn’t, he left, after poking and prodding at my face for a bit.”  Lydia shrugs.  “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.”  Stiles stares at her confused.  “Derek explained everything.”

“ _Everything_?”

“Yup.”  Lydia smacks her lips.

“Did he stab himself?  He likes to do that.”

“I don’t _like_ to do that.  I found it necessary, since you wouldn't have believed me if I didn’t.”  Derek says, walking through the door, a cheerfully confused doctor following after him.

The doctor looks between them, before his smile notches up one more watt.  “How are you feeling, Mr. Stilinski?”

Stiles sighs, “Like I got punched in the face.”

After shining a light in Stiles’ eyes, and performing a whole series of tests, the doctor determines that Stiles can leave, but with strict instructions to take it easy for a few days.  Stiles doesn’t know if he will be able to follow those instructions, considering a mass murdering asshole is still after him and Lydia.

After Lydia wins an intense argument with Derek about whose apartment they should go to, Stiles rests his head on the cool glass of the car window.  Snow falls lightly by as Lydia drives the three of them back to her place.

Allison sits on the couch reading when they come through the doors.  She looks at Derek, puzzled, before Stiles drops onto the couch beside her.

“You look terrible, what happened?”  Allison asks, marking her place before putting the book down, turning to face Stiles.

“My stalker punched me in the face,”  Stiles repeats for the third time today.

Allison looks startled, before her expression morphs into one of intense worry.  “Well shit.”

“Tell me about it,”  Lydia sighs, sitting on Allison’s other side, leaving Derek standing awkwardly by the coffee table.

“Did you call the cops?”  Allison asks.

“No, he ran away before we got the chance, and I was too busy freaking out over Stiles’ prone body to bother,”  Lydia says.

“But you called Derek?”  Allison asks, looking utterly confused.

Stiles purses his lips, how _did_ Lydia know to call Derek anyway?  Unless…

“I was nearby,” Derek says, scratching his head sheepishly.

Stiles narrows his eyes, unimpressed.  “Did you follow me to work after I so graciously cooked you breakfast?”  Somehow Stiles can’t find it in himself to be mad.  If Derek wasn’t there, Stiles wouldn’t have know how to explain the situation to Lydia.

“You slept with _Stiles_?”  Allison asks incredulously, silently judging.

“What’s wrong with Stiles?”  Derek asks, while Stiles exclaims, “Hey!”

“I didn’t think he was your type,”  Allison says, shrugging,  “I didn’t know you liked men.  Heck, I thought you didn’t like people at all.”

“For your information, we didn’t sleep together.  We talked,”  Stiles mutters, crossing his arms over his chest.

“And then Derek _what_?  Spent the night on the couch?”  Allison asks skeptically.

“I did actually, we just talked,”  Derek asserts.

“Enough of this,”  Lydia states firmly,  “I’m telling Allison about what happened at the morgue, and about everything else.”  She looks at Stiles and Derek both, begging them to argue with her.  

Stiles just raises his palms, while Derek sighs, likely not looking forward to stabbing himself again.  “Yeah, tell her.”

In the end, Derek doesn’t even need to stab himself.  The moment he says ‘immortal werewolf’ Allison stands up, pointing a finger at him with a huge, self-satisfied smirk on her face.  “I knew it.  I knew there was something weird about you.”

Derek just gapes at her, brows furrowed in confusion.  “You knew?”

Allison shakes her head, “No, but it explains so much.  You know weird things, and do strange stuff that can’t be explained.  Like when you lecture on historical figures, you talk about some of them like you knew them.  Or when you knew the locations of ancient settlements before they were even found.  Also, don’t you remember when you picked up a box of heavy research books like it was nothing?  I had to get three other students to help me carry the other one.  And that time I walked in on Professor Blake harassing you, I swear I saw your eyes flash red.  I thought it was my eyes playing tricks on me, but now…  Holy shit, Derek.  You’re a werewolf.”  Allison’s eyes are wide as she leans closer.  “What was Cleopatra like in real life?”

Derek shrugs.  “Never met her, but Nefertiti was a real fireball.”  

Lydia chuckles, and Derek turns to her, looking like he’s surprised she still has it in her to laugh.  To be honest, so does Stiles.  “Are you really okay with this?”  Derek asks Lydia carefully.  “Me killing your soulmate?”

She looks at him like he’s stupid, “That bastard hurt my best boy, I’d kill him if I could.”

“You could if you really wanted to,”  Derek says, “Once the full moon rises, he will be just as human as the rest of us.”

“I’m more worried about what we’re going to do with the body,”  Stiles says, bringing up what’s been bothering him for quite some time.  He doesn’t want to go to jail for this.

Lydia snorts, “Stiles, please.  We work in a morgue, we know our stuff.”

Stiles considers what she said and nods.  “Fair enough.”

“We shouldn’t stay in the city,”  Derek says,  “Peter knows where all of us live, and if he attacks, we’ll attract too much attention to ourselves.  People who have no part in this could get hurt.”

“My family maintains a manor upstate.”  Lydia taps a finger against her chin.  “It’s an old structure, solid stone walls, smaller windows, state of the art security system.  It’s difficult to break into, and if he tries, we’ll know he’s coming.  We can prepare ourselves.”

“It’s a week until the next full moon,”  Allison says, worriedly.  “What if he shows up before then?”  

“We’ll have to hope he doesn’t manage to find us,”  Lydia says to Allison, linking their fingers together.  “The four of us will go there, hole up for a week, and if the full moon passes, and he hasn’t found us yet, we’ll figure out how to tell him where we are without it being too obvious.”

Derek shakes his head.  “Allison shouldn’t come, there’s no reason to endanger her, Peter isn’t after her.  She’ll be safer if she stays in the city.”

Lydia turns sharp, calculating eyes on Derek, and Stiles can’t blame him for shrinking under that gaze.  “Tell me, Derek.  Do you know how to use a gun?  Because when the full moon rises, you’re forgetting that you won’t have your claws.  Both you and Peter will be human, helpless.”

“My father taught me to shoot when I was eight,”  Allison states confidently.  “You don’t have to worry, Peter won’t leave the property alive.”

***

“I always though Lydia was the scary one.  Who would’ve thought Allison had it in her,”  Derek says as he and Stiles sit on the fire escape.  Derek just wanted out of the stifling intensity of the apartment, he doesn’t know why Stiles is here, probably for the same reason.  

Allison and Lydia are packing for the trip inside.  Lydia assured Derek that her cousins keep enough clothes at the manor for both him and Stiles, so they don’t have to stop at either of their apartments, and risk Peter following them.  The snow is starting to fall heavier, and will probably start blizzarding as they leave the city, covering their tracks.  

Stiles sits wrapped in a parka, bobble hat on his head, nose redder than an apple, as his breaths puff into the cold air.  He looks adorable, and Derek has never wanted anything more than to shift and curl around him protectively, but he isn’t sure Stiles wants the attention.  After all, Derek did get him into this mess in the first place.

“Allison’s just really good at hiding it.  You should have seen her a few years ago when Lydia introduced us, she was a big fan of leather jackets and eyeliner.  I was so scared she would corrupt Lydia, that, or get her to loosen up a little.

Derek chuckles.  “Heaven forbid a loosened up Lydia.”

“I think the universe might implode before that happens,”  Stiles smiles,  “Lydia mellowed her out quite a bit.”

“They’re good for each other,”  Derek states.  He shivers when a cold wind blows by.  He’s only wearing a sweater, and it’s not enough to keep him warm in the chill, but he’d rather be out here with Stiles than anywhere else.

“You cold?”  Stiles asks.

Derek wraps his arms around his knees, blowing heat on his fingers.  “A little,”  He admits.

“I thought werewolves weren’t supposed to get cold.”

“I do when I’m in my human skin.”

“Then wear your wolf skin,”  Stiles says like it’s the simplest solution in the world, amber eyes watching him with an unreadable look in their depths.

“You don’t mind?”  Derek asks carefully, knowing that seeing a werewolf change can freak people out.

“Nah, I’m kind of curious.”  Stiles tilts his head to the side.  “Go on, what’re you waiting for?”

“Close your eyes?”  Derek requests, not brave enough, yet.  He takes a deep breath when Stiles does as he asks.  Standing up, he steps into the shadows, away from anyone who might be watching from the street below.  He slips out of his clothing, draping it on the metal bars, and lets the shift take over.

His view through the eyes of the wolf is one that is sharper, albeit devoid of most colour.  He sees Stiles in greys, blues and yellows, and the many moles on his face stand out in sharp contrast.  His skin looks like a constellation of stars, and Derek just wants to hold him close, warm the both of them up.  He approaches, gently rubbing his cold nose against Stiles’.

Stiles cracks his eyes open, and Derek waits for his reaction.  He’s bigger than a regular wolf in this shift, and more muscular, he knows he looks terrifying, and he wonders if Stiles will find him so.

“Your head is so big.”  Stiles in wonder, reaching out and gently running a single finger down the middle of Derek’s forehead, stopping at his nose.  Derek sneezes, and Stiles bursts into laughter.  

Derek pushes into Stiles, knocking him over.  He huffs, blowing clouds of steam into the cold air.

“Your face is all scrunched up.”  Stiles clutches at his side, still chortling.  “It’s so funny.”  

Derek rolls his eyes.  He lays down beside Stiles, his thick fur keeping him warm.  They sit together quietly for a little bit before Stiles reaches out and sinks his fingers into Derek’s fur.  He scratches down Derek’s back and he rumbles in pleasure.

“I remember the day I first met Lydia like it was yesterday.”  Stiles says out of nowhere, Derek quirks an ear, listening.  “We were in preschool, and she came up to me on the playground.  I was new, so all the other kids avoided me, but she didn’t.  She was the most popular girl, she had the most amount of friends, and all the boys had crushes on her.  I was just a scrawny kid with long hair to my shoulders.  But she took one look at me, and rushed over, her eyes wide.  She ran a hand through my hair, like she was helpless to do anything but.”  Stiles chuckles to himself.  “I was so surprised, I fell on my butt, started crying right away like a little wimp.”  Derek snorts.

“But Lydia, she just crouched down in front of me and held my hand until I stopped.  Only then, did she tell me that I would be her best friend forever.  Didn’t even give me the chance to say no.”  Stiles looks down, his eyes soft,  “All her incarnations, were like that—strong and bossy—she would fight so hard for the people she cared about.”   Stiles looks at Derek, eyes questioning.  “Was my incarnation—the one you fell in love with—like me at all, or are we totally different people?”

Derek looks at Stiles, head tilted to the side.  Drustan was amazing.  He was sweet, he was kind, but he was the complete opposite of Stiles.  Derek wouldn’t say he was in love with Drustan—it was much too early for that—but it wouldn’t have been a hardship to fall for him.  Just like it isn’t a hardship falling for Stiles.  

He guesses they are alike in some manner—they’re both so damn easy to love.

Lydia knocks on the window a few minutes later, pulling it open.  She doesn't even double take at Derek’s appearance.  “Everything’s packed.  We’re good to go.”

“You ready?”  Stiles asks Derek.

He grins, showing off sharp canines.  He’s never been readier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter to go, the confrontation!

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a comment, I treasure them like gold


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